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Maybe you’ve considered switching to an artificial Christmas tree this year, but are apprehensive because everyone in your family since your great grandfather has followed the custom of displaying a fresh-cut tree for Christmas.  Before you scoff at the idea of trading in your traditional tannenbaum for a plastic imposter, consider the long term financial and ecological benefits of starting your own Christmas tradition this year: reducing your environmental footprint, twofold. 

Save a Tree

Why spend money and waste gas driving to a tree lot only to pay too much for an undersized fresh-cut tree?  Lead your family out of the woods by selecting a reasonably priced artificial tree from the comfort and warmth of your home from Christmas Central’s website.   By choosing and reusing an artificial tree, you’re allowing healthy trees to help decrease carbon dioxide levels which contribute to global warming.   

Give a Tree

After the holiday season, you and your wife or husband can pick out a tree with your children to plant in your community.  Find a local organization to donate a tree to, and be sure to check with your state or community forester to find out which trees are native to your location.  It takes five minutes to cut down a mature tree, but it takes five years to establish a healthy new one. 

Artificial trees are a very wise investment because they have a long life span saving you money on trying to find a new tree each year at ever-increasing prices.  Sure, they can be expensive, but you can find artificial trees year round.  Hit the Christmas stores after the holidays and take advantage of a sale-priced tree.  Plus, you can find pre-lit artificial Christmas trees to save you time decorating.

If you’re still having trouble deciding, think about trying a slim tree.  Slim Christmas trees don’t compromise height but are smaller in circumference, and a smaller tree equals fewer resources consumed for production. 

Afraid you’ll miss out on the fresh pine scent of a natural tree?  Try a pine-scented candle.  It also saves you the hassle of watering and cleaning up the dead needles from a real tree. 

This year, make smart consumerism your tradition.  Before marching your family through knee-deep snow and cold in an expensive tree lot, consider the convenience, financial and ecological benefits of choosing an artificial tree online. 

Saving money during the holidays isn’t always on the top of everyone’s Christmas list.  Sometimes what we really wish for is a little more space. 

When it comes to Christmas trees, bigger is not always better.  Traditional, full-size trees are a desirable decoration but can look funny crammed into small spaces.  Whether your family is growing, out-of-town friends or relatives are visiting, you live in a cramped apartment, or you’re decorating your office for the holidays, you may not have enough room to display a tall plump Christmas tree. 

Consider a slim tree as a convenient space-saving alternative this Christmas.  Offered in several varieties, including Fir, Frasier, and Pine, slim trees maintain the aesthetic integrity of customary trees but leave you more floor space for presents ensuring maximum comfort. 

When the holidays are over, having a smaller tree becomes ideal for storage too.  Save attic, basement, or closet space with a slim tree. 

LED Lights Save Money, Energy, and Stress

It’s tradition: every year before Christmas you devote an entire afternoon, sometimes several, to decorating your home for the holiday season.  When it comes to lights, you’ve probably used the same strands for years, so chances are your tradition also includes sifting through the muddled mess of last year’s lights that were dropped in a box in the post-holiday haste to not be the last house on the block still displaying Santa’s jolly jowls.  This year, switch to LED lights and save money, time, and holiday headaches.

LED (Light-Emitting Diode) lights are not new.  According to Wikipedia, LEDs have been around since the mid 1920s.  In fact, long lasting LED lights have been trusted to illuminate the dashboards of commercial airliners for several years.  Most LED lights, however, were only available in red until recently.  Now Christmas enthusiasts can find LED lights in an array of colors: blue, green, white, yellow, red, and multicolor.  Plus, they’re more affordable than their incandescent predecessors. 

Consuming less energy, up to 90 to 95% less than traditional Christmas lights by producing more light per watt, LED lights can stay lit longer and still save money on energy bills.  LEDs burn bright but stay cool to the touch also, ensuring no threat of burns or overheating.

No more searching for broken bulbs either.  With old incandescent lights, if one goes, they all go.  Finding and replacing one bad bulb on a strand of hundreds of lights can be a daunting task.  LED lights are a quick fix because they don’t contain a filament.  Even if one bulb dims or burns out, the rest of the strand stays lit.  Instead of replacing one or two bulbs, or even one or two strands, each year, consider the long lifespan of LED lights. 

Once the holidays are over, storage is more convenient too.  LED lights are strung on sturdy strands of thicker and tougher wire making them more durable and easier to store. 

Make the transition to LED lights this Christmas and reduce your holiday season stress by being cost and energy efficient.

Decorating for Christmas can be very expensive. There are many ways you can decorate your home in a low cost way and have your home look absolutely fantastic. Natural elements are the best things you can use to decorate for Christmas. Many of the things you can use include pinecones, branches, and more.

Christmas is most people’s favorite holiday. It is a time when families get together and celebrate. During the holiday more people come and visit and spend time together than any other time of year. Decorating the home is important because you want to be sure your home looks nice. There are many cheap ways to decorate the home if you are on a budget. Christmas can be expensive with all of the gift giving.

One thing to do that people absolutely love is to take old used wine bottles. They might spray paint them green or red for to match the holiday colors or they like to match the bottles with the Christmas trees. You will then use the tall trip candles and burn them. As the candles burn and drip down the bottle they look really neat. This type of decoration is a real conversation piece and you can use it throughout the years.

Everyone likes to save their Christmas cards as they receive them. It is common for people to put them in their Christmas trees along with the decorations. There are many things you can do with your cards and use them for decoration. No reason to throw them away. You can glue the cards on a board and hang as artwork. Some people like to make a swag out of their cards and hang the strand across a mantel or down a long hallway.

Another cheap way to decorate is by using natural elements like pinecones. Pinecones always look good this time of year. These can be spray painted, glued and glittered and more. These look great on artificial Christmas trees and on real Christmas trees. People love them. In addition to a cheap way to decorate they make great gifts because they work perfect to start a fire in the winter.

Holiday wreaths are easy to make too. You can make a holiday wreath from any type of greenery you see. If you want wreaths to match the Christmas trees you can use the trimmings from the tree to put together a wreath. You will tie the pieces together with fishing line. This is the best because it is very strong and not visible. These can be hung on a door, on the wall, and even used on the table with a large candle inside.

There are many ways to decorate for Christmas when you are on a budget. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to make it look festive in your home for the holiday. There are plenty of natural elements you can use to make your own decorations. These types of decorations also make fantastic gifts for friends and family members too.

Even though it’s only September, but if you’re in charge of your company or business’ holiday decorations, it’s starting to get close to the eleventh hour. Now’s the time to get planning - and ordering your supplies - for your holiday display.

I’m going to apologize in advance for the design quality of the site I’m about to link, but this article about commercial Christmas decorating has some great ideas for how you can create a beautiful display.

The one that really jumps out at us is the note about giant Christmas trees.

Commercial Giant Trees
The size of these commercial giant trees as the name suggest is big from 14′ to over a 100′ in height. If you planning to decorate shopping malls, hotels, Cities, parks, zoos or any other place then these commercial giant trees can be used.

As the article says, there are many options for giant commercial Christmas trees - we at Christmas Central have many artificial Christmas tree options - but we have some really great ideas for how you can make an impact with your company holiday display:

1. Go big: A giant Christmas tree can have a really great impact - depending on your space, you can use this 30-foot giant tree or something a little smaller. Just make sure you get enough Christmas lights to cover the whole thing.
2. Build a forest: While we have the best prices around, we know giant Christmas trees can run a pretty penny - if your budget is a bit smaller, try spreading out. By creating a Christmas tree forest. This only works if you have the space - we’re talking a large atrium or something similar - but the visual impact of walking through dozens of lit Christmas trees even indoors can be pretty impressive. It’s an unconventional idea, but it can pack a holiday punch.
3. Think small: Going miniature can even be a visual trip. When we were kids, we remember that our local mall had a miniature Christmas town spread across a wide swath of the center of the shopping center, complete with a miniature train and miniature people. Why not set up something similar at your offices? You could use items like our Lemax Village collection - though as collectibles, you might want to consider another miniature route, like some of our other Christmas Collectibles. 

So those are just some of our ideas - if you have more, let us know!

Of all the holiday traditions out there, Christmas lights might be one of my favorites. But how did Christmas lights start as a tradition?

As a child, I remember reading “‘Twas The Night Before Christmas” and those old drawings always showed Christmas trees bedecked with candles, and I always found that odd. How could you have an open flame on a wood tree? Wouldn’t it start a fire? But obviously, in the pre-electricity days, candles were the way to go, and that’s where the story of Christmas lights begins:

From Ideafinder.com:

People first started putting lights on Christmas trees back in the middle of the 17th century. They attached small candles to the ends of tree branches with wax or pins. Before electricity was widely available, people didn’t usually put up their trees until December 24 because of the risk of fire. Once electric Christmas tree lights were invented, people started to put up trees earlier, and leave them up longer.

As Christmas lights evolved, you began to see the variations in style you see today - from the big C9 bulbs that are so retro-chic today, to mini rice lights to the new eco-friendly LED lights that are becoming more and more popular.

We’ve found a few more links with the history of Christmas lights, so we can all get excited for the coming season.

The History of Christmas Lights

Wikipedia’s entry on Christmas Lights

The San Francisco Chronicle asks the question: When is it too early for Christmas lights?

We just wanted to take the time to let everyone know www.ChristmasCentral.com has a new look!

We still have the same giant selection - over 15,000 items and growing - at the best prices on the web.

We think the new site is easier to use, looks great, and really shows off our Christmas cheer year round. We also have a brand new Live Help button - right at the top of our website! Just click on that link when Santa says we’re open and you’ll have access to the Christmas Central team live, right through your computer!

So if you’re looking for Christmas Lights, Christmas trees or all kinds of Christmas decorations, remember to come back to www.ChristmasCentral.com.

Guess what next month is. It’s really obvious. Seriously, look at the design of this blog, then think about it.

Still no clue?

It’s CHRISTMAS IN JULY BABY!

We here at Christmas Central, of course, are super pumped. It means 6 months to Christmas. It’s a mile marker for us. It’s around the time we start busting out our Christmas lights, start setting up our Christmas trees, and it’s when we start buckling down for the coming season.

It’s also a time when we (and many other Christmas companies) are clearing out space for our in-coming Christmas seasonal merchandise. What’s that mean for you? It means, well, there’s never a better time to buy your Christmas decorations. As we’ve mentioned before, the real trick to a stress-free Christmas is to plan ahead. We are, and we think you should too.

But until then, enjoy a few of our favorite Christmas tunes, remixed for the summer.

For corporate decorators, event promoters, retail display installers and interior designers, the Christmas holiday season is one of the biggest and most complex decoration installations of the year. It’s the time when retail stores pull out all the stops to impress and push Christmas specials. It’s a time when corporations put up their best displays - elaborate Christmas light displays, massive artificial Christmas trees, store wide garland strands and much, much more.

With the complexity of many of these commercial or retail Christmas displays, it’s important to plan ahead, even as far ahead as, well, Christmas in July.

When planning for commercial-level displays, you have to establish scale first. How big is the space you’re decorating? Where is it located - inside, outside, or in a store display window? What is your budget?

With any size budget, it’s a mistake to try and get by with normal, home-grade decorations. Store, community and corporate Christmas displays need commercial-grade Christmas decorations. They are more durable, more reliable, can handle larger scale (as the average commercial Christmas display can dwarf a home set-up) and, as a marketing tool, needs to convey a certain image, whether matching the quality of your company or complementing retail products well.

Suppliers such as Christmas Central specialize in this level of decoration. When coordinating your display, you may want large-sized decorations such as 12-foot Christmas wreaths, or 15-foot pre-lit artificial Christmas trees. It’s important to plan for your space - if you’re getting a large item like that tree or wreath, you should be sure that it will fit, and ordering ahead of time will also help you get more bang for your budget dollar.

As the weather gets warmer and the sun stays out longer, the last thing most people are probably thinking about is Christmas.

Why would you? You’ve got months to worry about Christmas shopping, Christmas decorating, Christmas clean-up and Christmas stress.

But it is always good to get your Christmas planning (and shopping) out of the way early. Why? It’ll save you time, worry and, ultimately, money.

Sales:

Last season’s Christmas designs might be dated by retailer standards, but really, does Christmas ever go out of style? Check sales or closeouts - especially at online retailers like Christmas Central - to find Christmas decorations, Christmas lights, Christmas trees and more for much, much cheaper than you would, say, in November when demand is at its highest.

Plan your decorating:

It’s November, the day after Thanksgiving. And it’s time to hang your Christmas lights. You initially think you could do the same thing you do every year - wrap your trees in lights, cover the bushes, etc. But one strand is dead, three more are missing bulbs, and your wreaths disintegrated after your basement flooded last spring. How are you going to decorate your house?

That’s why it’s a good idea to have a look at how your Christmas decorations, lights and more are stored - you’ll have a better idea of how you want to decorate, and what you have that will make it work. Need to buy new lights? Get them now, while they’re cheap. Planning ahead will only save you headaches.

Those are a couple tips we have for saving yourself Christmas stress in May. Have you got any others?